


Baby, Let Me Be (Your Last First Kiss)

by nerddowell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Humour, Loras and Oberyn actually get along, M/M, Renly and Oberyn are past lovers, Romance, That 'that one thing he does with his tongue' trope, to the point where one can even almost call them friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 23:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15230793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: 'So who was your first?' Loras asks, his eyes glittering, smile wicked. 'C'mon, you've heard all about Daron Crakehall in Year Ten and Tosspot Olyvar in Upper Sixth.'Renly and Loras discuss firsts over a pint and become one another's last.





	Baby, Let Me Be (Your Last First Kiss)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afewreelthoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afewreelthoughts/gifts), [rensbarath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rensbarath/gifts).



> For Reel and Beth, for letting me use (and probably ruin) their Oberen headcanons!
> 
> Title from the One Direction song because there's nothing wrong with a good pop song every once in a while and god damn it, it fits.

Renly is a little drunk and still nursing the last half of his third pint of cider, Loras a little more than a little drunk and has just finished his fourth. They're tucked away in a small booth in their favourite pub, a tiny little hole in the wall in the centre of York, and discussing past relationships. Both of them are aware of the thing that had been going on between them, the gentle pull of gravity slowly bringing them together, the lingering looks and fleeting touches when the other isn't quite looking. Loras is leaning across the table, close enough that Renly can see every golden fleck in his brown eyes and count the freckles on his cheeks. He smells of spearmint from his gum, cider and crushed honeysuckle from the petals in his tangled curly hair.

Renly smiles at him, the faint drunken blush on his best friend's cheeks deepening to a rosy pink, Loras' lips full and plush and slick where he's licked traces of the cider away. The lighting is dim, the interior of the pub hazy and dreamlike, and all Renly would need to do is lean across and kiss him - but he doesn't.

'So who was your first?' Loras asks, his eyes glittering, smile wicked. 'C'mon, you've heard all about Daron Crakehall in Year Ten and Tosspot Olyvar in Upper Sixth.' They both shudder at the memory of Olyvar, the Upper Sixth Form TA, who had been lovely up until Loras realised that he was sort of a monumental arsehole for deliberately outing him to his entire year group via email for daring to break up with him.

'Good riddance,' they say in unison, and Loras laughs and clinks his glass to Renly's. They each take a sip of their drinks and Renly ponders the question for a moment before smiling.

'My first - and I know you're not going to believe this - was two years ago. First year at uni.'

'Who?'

'My first year Spanish TA.' Oberyn Martell had been olive-skinned and dark-eyed, wickedly handsome and ridiculously good in bed, and had been the first taste of true love Renly had ever had. True, their relationship - if it could even be called that - was entirely casual on Oberyn's side, and maybe Renly should have called it off earlier when he'd fallen off the deep end, but what they'd had had been the best year of Renly's life until Oberyn let him down gently at the end of the university year.

'What was he like?' Loras asks, his eyes wide. Renly never speaks about his exes, partly because he knows that however well he hides it, Loras has a jealous streak he would do well not to provoke, and also because who he's slept with and what his feelings for them were have no bearing on how he feels now. Which, although he hasn't yet acted on it, is pretty much arse-over-tit in love with his best friend.

'He was...' Renly considers. 'He was exactly what I needed at the time.'

'Well, what does that mean?' Loras scoffs, laughing. He pokes Renly, quite a lot harder than perhaps he means to, in the ribs, and his friend squirms away and rolls his eyes goodnaturedly.

'You're so _nosy_ , Loras.'

'You can't promise to tell me all the juicy details about your exes and then leave it at seven words!'

'I made no such promises,' Renly laughs, but he shrugs and gives in anyway. 'He was the casual shag that I let myself get in too deep with. He was kind, he was respectful, he never pitied me-' Loras remembers Renly's childhood as he'd been told, the years of solitude with one brother away at work and the other available in every sense but the emotional. '-He took me under his wing a little, like a cool uncle.'

'A cool uncle you wanted to fuck?'

'A cool uncle I _did_ fuck, and was roundly fucked by. He used to tell me stories about all the places he'd visited on his gap years backpacking around the world - he'd been to Iguazú Falls, and Machu Picchu, and the Forbidden City, and all the other places I'd seen in travel brochures as a child and dreamed about going to. He'd had sex under the stars in Australia and behind a waterfall in South Africa, and he even told me about the time when he'd been sleeping naked in Kenya and gotten a mosquito bite right on his-'

'Whoa!' Loras shouts, throwing up his hands in a _Stop!_ gesture, ' _Way_ too much information, Ren.'

'It wasn't at the time,' Renly says with a smirk, 'I couldn't get enough of his cock, hearing about it, touching it, anything.'

Loras groans, rubbing his hands over his eyes. 'Cannot unsee!'

'You're welcome,' Renly sing-songs, and Loras hits him with a beer coaster.

* * *

Renly ends up putting Loras to bed not long after. His best friend is something of a sloppy drunk, and a lightweight besides, and it had taken every last ounce of Renly's not inconsiderable charm to persuade a taxi driver to allow the obviously inebriated Loras into the back of his car. Renly sat with him and rested Loras' head on his shoulder, stroking his hair, the whole way back home, and thankfully the taxi ride had thus passed without incident. Still, Renly puts Loras straight to bed in his own room, tucking the sheets up under his chin, and lays down beside him on top of the covers. He goes back to stroking Loras' damp curls, knowing that his friend is fully passed out and thus won't remember the overly affectionate gesture in the morning.

Oberyn used to do this for him, he remembers, whenever Renly came over for a fuck and ended up having a mini meltdown on the bed instead. (Which had happened with embarrassing frequency.) Oberyn wasn't one to coddle, nor to patronise, but he'd soon worked out that Renly was all but starving for the touch of someone, anyone, else, and so he'd taken to small physical reassurances like a hand smoothing his ruffled hair or resting lightly on his shoulder to ground him whenever anxiety struck.

Renly had been eighteen and in awe of this wordly, wise twenty-seven-year-old, with his liquid Spanish accent and dancing dark eyes and the tongue that could say and do things to Renly that made his head spin and his knees weak. He'd been rough when Renly wanted it and gentle when Renly needed it, whether that was how Renly wanted it or not.

And after all was said and done, and Renly was waiting for Oberyn outside the student bar for the essay tutorial he didn't really need and had seen Oberyn with his arm around a statuesque Spanish woman and his lips on a slim blond boy's, he'd finally admitted to himself that Oberyn wasn't ever going to be his boyfriend and was summarily heartbroken.

That state had lasted for approximately six months, during which Oberyn had made every effort to remain friends and Renly had suffered the skipping heartbeat and fluttering stomach that came with hope for more, until he'd spotted a group of prospective students looking around and had seen Loras' curly head among them.

Renly had been in love with Oberyn Martell for eight months and two days. He has been in love with Loras Tyrell for eleven months, three weeks, one day and the rest of his life.

* * *

Loras awakes in the morning to Renly fast asleep on the bed next to him, long dark lashes casting spiderwebs of shadow over his cheeks and a thin trail of drool leaking from the corner of his lips. Despite his own headache - and Loras gets his most vicious hangovers from cider - he feels perfectly at ease, as though waking up next to Renly is the most natural thing in the world.

He's lying there watching Renly sleep, fighting the urge to brush a lock of his dark hair off his face for him, when Renly's eyes flutter open and slowly focus on his face. A smile breaks out on his friend's face and Loras grins back.

'There you are,' Renly says, his voice thick with sleep; Loras nods, and finally pushes that irritating lock of hair out of Renly's eyes.

'Here I am.'

'It's nice to see you.'

Loras' heart takes off in his chest. He laughs a little awkwardly, ducking his head to hide from Renly's sleepy blue gaze. 'You see me every day, Ren. We're best mates.'

'I mean, it's nice to wake up to you.'

'Ren...' There's a lump in his throat. He can't bear to hear these things if it's the product of Renly's subconscious imagination, their alcohol consumption last night, or some twisted attempt at humour.

'What?'

'Do you mean that?'

Renly looks at him for a long time, his brow furrowing into that adorable little frown Loras loves so much, and his heart pangs. He loves Renly so much it hurts, so much he feels like he can't breathe when Renly's eyes are on his. He feels sick, and it's nothing to do with the hangover currently jackhammering his skull.

'I do,' Renly says slowly, almost to himself. 'I do mean it.'

Loras swallows convulsively, picking at a loose thread on the covers to avoid Renly's piercing gaze.

'What do you intend to do about it?' he asks, and Renly looks thoughtful again.

'I was thinking,' he said, 'about maybe taking you to dinner and a film, and then taking it slowly from there.'

'Taking it slowly, huh?' Loras asks, a smile he can't help creeping across his face. 'And here I was hoping the answer was 'Roll you over and fuck you six ways to Sunday.''

Renly laughs, bright in the morning sunlight filling the room, and shakes his head. 'See, if Oberyn taught me anything, it's that I'm a romantic at heart, and taking things slow is better than rushing into something and getting hurt.'

'Shame,' Loras says with a small smirk, 'I was hoping he'd taught you a little more than that.'

'You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?' Renly teases, and leans in to kiss him.

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

They have dinner with Oberyn and his partner Ellaria one Friday night during their second month of dating, and at the end of the meal, whilst Renly argues goodnaturedly with Ellaria about exactly who is treating whom, Loras is pulled aside by Oberyn.

'Loras Tyrell,' he says, in that smooth, husky voice of his, and despite only having eyes for Renly, Loras can certainly understand why Oberyn is never short of admirers.

'Oberyn Martell,' Loras echoes, and Oberyn snorts.

'I've wanted to meet you for a long time,' the Spaniard tells him, 'not least to see exactly who this paragon Renly describes as the hottest man in the world is.' Loras blushes. Oberyn grins at him, amusement sparkling in his dark eyes.

'I also wanted to thank you,' he continues. 'Renly's been looking for something for a long time, and I think he's found it.'

'I should thank you, as well,' Loras says, and Oberyn cocks a perfect black eyebrow.

'Oh?'

'That thing he does with his tongue...'

Oberyn's laughter is loud and as musical as his voice, and when Renly looks around questioningly, Loras just grins and waves him away.


End file.
